Потсдамская декларация: Ультиматум Японии о безоговорочной капитуляции

Allied call for the surrender of all of the armed forces of Japan during World War II

The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of China Chiang Kai shek issued the document, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan, as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. The ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."

Each of the Allies who signed the Declaration had their own intentions for doing so, and all parties desired to receive reparations for war damages from the Japanese.

The Republic of China under the Nationalist rule of Chiang Kai shek desired immediate withdrawal of the Imperial Japanese Army and its subsidiary force the Kwantung Army from all Chinese territory, including Manchuria. Until the very end of the war the Japanese Army had been campaigning in China to assert the rule of the Japanese colonial state there, and the Chinese Nationalists and Communists had been fighting in tandem to expel them from the country. The Potsdam Declaration was issued in part to make clear the Chinese expectation of complete Japanese withdrawal from China.

The United Kingdom had lost control of its possessions in Southeast Asia and China to the Japanese advance in 1941 42. These included Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Hong Kong, and others. A key motivation of the British government was a restoration of control in its prewar possessions, along with a prompt end to the Japanese war effort, especially on the Indian front in Burma.

The United States desired to keep maximum strategic latitude for itself upon the defeat of Japan. The American government had demanded in the past the unconditional surrender of Japan as the precondition to peace, and the text of the Declaration reiterated this demand. In the remainder of Asia, the American government had the goals of total rollback of the Empire of Japan's overseas possessions, as well as the additional goal of preventing the communists with the support and patronage of the Soviet Union from expanding influence in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

The declaration was released to the press in Potsdam on the evening of July 26 and simultaneously transmitted to the Office of War Information (OWI) in Washington. By 5:00 p. m. Washington time, OWI's West Coast transmitters, aimed at the Japanese home islands, were broadcasting the text in English, and two hours later they began broadcasting it in Japanese. The declaration was never transmitted to the Japanese government by diplomatic channels, one reason being that the State Department did not want the United States to be seen as suing for peace. The Japanese ambassador to Moscow reacted to the news by calling the declaration "a big scare bomb directed against us". American bombers dropped over 3 million leaflets describing the declaration over Japan, despite the fact that picking up enemy propaganda leaflets and listening to foreign radio broadcasts was illegal in Japan. The initial English radio transmission was received in Japan by the Foreign Ministry, Dōmei News Agency, the Imperial Army, and the Imperial Navy. It was translated into Japanese by Takeso Shimoda of the Treaty Division of the Foreign Ministry. An internal discussion in the Foreign Ministry concluded that acceptance was unavoidable, but there was still room for negotiation. "Remaining silent is prudent; the news media should be instructed to print it without any comments."

The Potsdam Declaration and consideration of adopting it occurred before nuclear weapons were used. The terms of the declaration were hotly debated within the Japanese government. Upon receiving the declaration, Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō hurriedly met with Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki and Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu. Sakomizu recalled that all felt the declaration must be accepted. Despite being sympathetic to accepting the terms, Tōgō felt it was vague about the eventual form of government for Japan, disarmament, and the fate of accused war criminals. He also still had hope that the Soviet Union would agree to mediate negotiations with the Western Allies to obtain clarifications and revisions of the declaration's terms. Shortly afterwards, Tōgō met with Emperor Hirohito and advised him to treat the declaration with the utmost circumspection, but that a reply should be postponed until the Japanese received a response from the Soviets to mediate peace. According to Foreign Ministry official Toshikazu Kase, Hirohito "said without hesitation that he deemed it [the declaration] acceptable in principle." Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War met the same day to discuss the declaration. War Minister Korechika Anami, General Yoshijirō Umezu, and Admiral Soemu Toyoda opposed accepting the declaration, argued that the terms were "too dishonorable," and advised for the Japanese government to reject it openly. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai leaned towards accepting it but agreed that clarification was needed over the status of the Emperor. Tōgō's suggestion for the government not to respond until it received the Soviet response was accepted. Suzuki stated that the Japanese policy toward the declaration was one of (黙殺), which the United States interpreted as meaning "rejection by ignoring." That led to a decision by the White House to carry out the threat of destruction. After the White House decision, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and then the second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Both bombings devastated the two cities, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying much of the cities' infrastructure as well as military bases and factories in a matter of seconds in a radius that stretched for more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers). On August 9, 1945, Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin, based on a secret agreement at the Yalta Conference in February, unilaterally abrogated the 1941 Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact and declared war on Japan. Thus began the Soviet–Japanese War, with the Soviets invading Manchuria on three fronts. However, the word can also mean "withholding comment." however, this claim is not universally accepted. In a widely broadcast speech after the bombing of Hiroshima, which was picked up by Japanese news agencies, Truman warned that if Japan failed to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, it could "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth." As a result, Suzuki felt compelled to meet the Japanese press, and he reiterated his government's commitment to ignore the Allies' demands and fight on. However, soon after that statement, it became clear to many that surrender was a realistic option. The thoroughness of the Allies' demands and the fact they were made public forced the Japanese leaders and populace to realize the success that Japan's enemies had achieved in the war. After the receipt of the Potsdam Declaration, the Japanese government attempted to maintain the issue of the Emperor's administrative prerogative within the Potsdam Declaration by its surrender offer of August 10, but in the end, it had to take comfort with US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes' reply: "From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms." Thus, at 1200 JST on August 15, 1945, the Emperor announced his acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which culminated in the surrender documents signature on board the Missouri on September 2, 1945. The radio announcement to the Japanese people was the first time many of them had actually heard the voice of the Emperor. The Potsdam Declaration was intended from the start to serve as legal basis for handling Japan after the war.

The Imperial Japanese Government, under the direction of prime minister Suzuki Kantarō, did not publicly entertain the possibility of surrender to the Allies. The historical controversy lies in whether or not the demand for an unconditional surrender by Japan stalled possible peace negotiations. If the demand for unconditional surrender had not been made, so the argument goes, there could be no argument for the necessity of the use of firebombing and nuclear weapons against Japan. This is the flashpoint around which much of historiographical controversy surrounding the Declaration revolves. According to American historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, the Japanese Cabinet was not particularly inclined to surrender at all, and records of the events immediately after the dropping of the Hiroshima Bomb do not indicate an effect on the government towards surrender on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration immediately after the dropping of the bomb. Hasegawa also notes that Stalin told Truman at the Potsdam Conference that the Soviet Union would begin war with Japan within the beginning of August, but that American estimates placed the estimated time at the end of the month.